Mr. Lorcan O'Connor:

Deputy Pearse Doherty raised three main questions with me. The first was the situation that applies when somebody misses a payment within an arrangement and the arrears. The legislation provides that where there are arrears of three months the creditor has the right to go to court and seek for that arrangement to be terminated, and if the arrears extend to six months, the court automatically terminates the arrangement. Having said all of that, as we develop a protocol we are trying to put in place flexibility around that legislative consequence. For example, the protocol is looking at whether we can put in place payment breaks so that if somebody's car or washing machine breaks down, he or she is given a payment holiday to solve that rather than have this arrears consequence kick in.

The Deputy's second point related to inheritance and windfall. As I stated, there is the variation mechanism, which can go up or down. If somebody is better or worse off than they started out, there is a mechanism whereby the arrangement is altered to reflect the new reality. If, in bankruptcy in the UK, one comes into an inheritance, it goes to the creditors. Here, if one comes into a material inheritance or windfall, the variation will kick in and it will be down to the commercial terms of that arrangement as to what happens to those moneys.

In terms of the compulsory nature of the protocol, in the same way that the arrangements are voluntary-----